I've been doing a lot of research into ships lately. Both early sailing ships (the cog and the caravel) for my fantasy novel The Bastard Prince and spaceships for an SF novel.
It's tough going.
So look, I live in Alberta (Canada) which is basically land-locked. I've probably only been on a boat less than a dozen times in my life--five ferry rides, a harbor taxi, a canoe, a rowboat and two speedboats (once whale-watching, the other trying and failing to learn to waterski.) Not a lot of experience there. I've never been out on the open ocean out of sight of land, always just protected straits and harbors and lakes. I've only experienced gentle waves and sunny skies, no storms.
A lot of my ship scenes are written from the point-of-view of my heroine, who knows nothing of ships, which helps, but some of the scenes have to be from my reformed-pirate-captain hero.
Things I've researched: How did the caravel revolutionize sailing? What were gunwales called before the invention of cannons meant the sides of ships had to be reinforced? How many masts and what dimensions did the early caravels have? When were grapples invented? Did Vikings have sea battles? I'm sure there will be lots more before I'm done.
Writing about spaceships is both worse and better. Better, because the novel is set a hundred years in the future and so I can hand-wave some of it as something that will be invented later. Worse, because I do need to wrap my brain around some of the science and orbital mechanics. My characters don't have to navigate but I need to ground my space travel in enough reality that readers who do know some science won't be wincing.
(I once stopped reading an SFR book because I could not accept the huge coincidence of their spaceship having a breakdown close to a prison planet. Um, space is LARGE. The chances of this happening inside a solar system much less right beside a planet is probably a million to one.)
So ships. So many ships. So much research. Wish me luck!
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